ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, Shakespeare and Company, 08/22/2007

Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” is full of it, but the current production at Shakespeare and Company doesn’t really make good on the promise of the play.

This is Marc Antony after his best days are done; his love for the Egyptian queen has sapped, if not some of his strength, then at least some of his resolve.

But Nigel Gore plays the man as though Cleopatra had sapped him on the head as well (it’s another definition; look it up).

Gore has done good work in his brief tenure at S&C, but instead of playing Antony as a character caught between passion and power, he simply plays him as a wishy-washy clown.

There’s not a moment where the crowd believes this guy was once the prince of the world.

It actually makes one pine for a Dan McCleary, a Jonathan Epstein or an Allyn Burrows. Those former S&C players may have taken things over the top, but at least they meant it.

Burdensome, too, the fact that Tina Packer plays Cleopatra as a doting, maternal figure more than as a powerful, alluring siren.

Much has been made of Packer playing the 39-year-old beauty while herself being in her 60s.
That’s not the problem. It’s a matter of attitude.

Far be it from me to second-guess Packer, one of the world’s leading Shakespeare experts. But I’ll second-guess director Michael Hammond until the cows come home, and he lets Packer get away with it.

The supposed passion in this play never happens because Gore and Packer seem intent on playing their roles as solo pieces amid a group of other actors.

Hammond tosses other spanners in the works as well.

Arthur Oliver’s costumes, for example, are sewn from some sort of thrift-shop chic. And they are not defined enough from each other to make it clear that actors playing multiple roles (like Ryan Winkles and Kevin Rich) are different people in different scenes.

And stylized fight scenes â€¦ choreographed by Susan Dibble and Winkle â€¦ are really a little more amorphous than they need be.

It’s as though Hammond was determined to blunt every edge the play offers.

For the script, he’s using a cut of the play created by Oregon Shakespeare Festival. On the plus side, it keeps the many scenes moving right along. On the down side, its lightning exposition amplifies Gore and other cast members’ waffling.

No troupe in the region offers as much Shakespeare or takes as many chances with it, so not every production can dazzle.

If you’ve never seen the play, here’s a chance, just not the best chance.

Michael Eck, a freelance writer from Albany, is a regular contributor to the Times Union.